“DevOps” has been around as a buzzword in tech sector for almost 10 years now. “DevOps Professional”, “DevOps Technology”, “DevOps Engineer”, “DevOps Practices” are few such words that have become ubiquitous with software technology.
Wikipedia defines “DevOps” as “a set of practices intended to reduce the time between committing a change to a system and the change being placed into normal production, while ensuring high quality.”
DevOps is The New Black!
My first encounter with “DevOps” was six years ago when I worked for an investment bank and worked as a “release and configuration manager”, a fancy title but my responsibilities meant I was to be “jack of all trades”, apply common sense and get the job done (the job being enabling delivery of technology solutions by helping my team and collaborating with application and infrastructure team). I do more or less similar work now, but I am a “DevOps Consultant”
“DevOps” is nothing but a common sense approach to doing everything, collaborating with others and ensuring delivery of technology solutions for an enterprise. It is about finding the most efficient way of doing things with limited resources, avoiding risk and adding value to the core business. Often it is not about the best technology or tool but operational and development culture. It is all about doing away with silos between various technology teams
So, for all good people out there who want to be “DevOps”, you might already be one. It is not a methodology but a mindset. The essence of “DevOps” is collective ownership, respect for each other and commitment to shared goals and values. “DevOps” doesn’t necessarily mean working with the latest and greatest tool or technology or open source tools. “DevOps” is all about encouraging the tool, technology and processes that are “fit for purpose”
Almost all the “DevOps” tools and technology are geared towards increasing automation, collaboration and simplicity. While it is important to emphasise that “DevOps” isn’t about the software technology, there are technology frameworks that go a long way in achieving some of the principals behind DevOps. Let’s address them here.
Automation
Almost all software development nowadays involves varying degree of automation. Not only does it reduce the element of human error, but also speeds up delivery of the solution and reducing risk. The right platform can integrate various layers of software development by automating the design and development, testing, deployment and release orchestration, and monitoring and alerting. It might be a simple scripting language and combination of open source technology that does everything or proprietary platforms that are used to achieve the same outcome.
Collaboration
There is no substitute to physical person-to-person collaboration but “DevOps” collaboration technology takes it to new-level by capturing the collaboration efforts. For example, platforms like JIRA, Slack, HipChat, Skype allow multiple teams to collaborate in an agile manner and increase knowledge sharing and removing any physical barriers to communication. They also increase accountability and visibility and allow teams to measure on how well they are collaborating.
Simplicity
Gone are the days of complex solution designs and mountains of documentation. “DevOps” encourages simple processes and frequent delivery to identify and address any roadblocks. There is no big bang implementation and production rollouts. By using CICD tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, uDeploy, the build pipelines are manageable and it becomes easy to identify any issues with the software. Developers and operations team work closely to simplify release and production support making the operational readiness process a breeze.
We at Diaxion are all about delivery. It is all about getting the job done. We believe that change is inevitable and our experience has enriched us in everything that is “DevOps” nowadays. We do not have a tool or technology centric philosophy. Our approach brings enhanced collaboration with focus on automation and continuous delivery. “DevOps” at Diaxion encourages diversity of opinions, team work, continuous learning, visibility and transparency.
